A friend of mine has been researching the use of tiki symbolism in New Zealand prior to the 1950’s, and most notably it’s use in military units and formations. A German author, Sven Kirstin, has written 3 books about tiki pop culture (published by Taschen), claiming that this was somehow a unique cultural invention particular to the United States. Despite the fact it has been pointed out to him that white New Zealanders adopted the tiki as a popular culture icon on postcards, book covers, stamps, ashtrays, cigarette lighters, mugs etc. decades before white Americans did, he has failed to mention this in his books and persists in his view that it’s a unique cultural feature of the USA that originated around the 1950’s. Continue reading “The New Zealand Tiki Squadrons (1)”
Category: In The K-Rations
Off To Sink The Bismark? But With Which Rules?
While I had the camera out the other day I thought I’d snap a few quick shots of my 1/2400th World War II naval models. I picked these up several months ago off a wargamer in the USA as I had sold off my existing fleets of 1/4800th models (mostly C-in-C) and was planning on replacing them with 1/2400th GHQ models, but took this opportunity to acquire a reasonable German fleet with a couple of British Battleships (Hood & Prince of Wales) and an unpainted Japanese fleet (which is exactly what I was looking for to complement my Crossfire WW2 Pacific land forces). The vessels are all GHQ except for a few of the Japanese which are some very nice resin models (manufacturer unknown). The pictures here are the classic 1941 North Sea vessels (Battle of the Denmark Strait) – but the issue now is what set of rules to use with them…
Continue reading “Off To Sink The Bismark? But With Which Rules?”A Bit Of WW2 Wargaming & Some Nostalgia
A friend of mine recently sent me some pics of some of his WW2 Wargaming terrain – we used to wargame together in the 1980’s and early 1990’s and his stuff has been mainly in storage for the last 15 years – but he’s been cracking it out recently as well as starting to work on some new pieces.
Operation CROSSFIRE: 11 September 2010
In April 2009 the Crossfire community conducted a global mini-campaign where games were played on the same day all around the world and linked together so the result of the games in each time zone affected what happened in the games in subsequent time zones. You can read all about World Crossfire Day 2009 here at Wargaming.info.
Now in 2010 its time for a different idea, again linking players from the Crossfire community located all around the world… This time its going to be a simultaneous game, played all over the world at the exact same time, and with Commanders in Chief located elsewhere in the world who will be receiving reports via email, and sending orders by the same, and who can transfer troops from one game to another (in real time), choose where to commit reserves, and so on…
Combat Tanks Collection 1-7
Here are some photos of the models in the first few issues of the CTC Magazine. As I previously posted on the Auckland Wargaming Club Website the Combat Tanks Collection Magazine from the UK is now available here in NZ (having been available in Australia for sometime, and in a different format as the non-English Panzer Magazine in other countries)…
And you can subscribe on line or pick it up from most book stores. Each issue includes a 1/72nd Scale Die-Cast Model similar to those produced by Dragon Armor; Forces of Valor; and similar.
Continue reading “Combat Tanks Collection 1-7”Crossfire II announced
Arty Conliffe announces plans for Crossfire II and hopes it will be published around the end of 2009; read his announcement at the Crossfire Website.
World War II Mosquito Fleet 1/600th Naval
Having been recently inspired by a David Manley article reprinted* in the latest SOTCW (Society of Twentieth Century Wargamers) Journal for fast play Motor Torpedo Boat rules for World War II, I am looking to dust off my reasonable sized fleet of Skytrex 1/600th scale vessels that have been living in boxes for 15 years – since my days of playing “Fast Attack!” Looking forward to hauling these out soon so keep an eye out for some new material later in 2009 on this… I’ve been further inspired to possibly also do WWI as well just Dave G’s models available at PT Dockyard giving an indication of the vessels involved.
David Manley’s fast play MTB rules were first published in “Wargames Journal” issue 9 at the start of 2008.
WW2 (& WW1) Mosquito Fleets
Having been recently inspired by a David Manley article reprinted* in the latest SOTCW (Society of Twentieth Century Wargamers) Journal for fast play Motor Torpedo Boat rules for World War II, I am looking to dust off my reasonable fleet of 1/600th scale vessels that have been living in boxes for 15 years – since my days of playing “Fast Attack!” Looking forward to hauling these out soon so keep an eye out for some new material later in 2009 on this… While I am mainly a fan of Skytrex 1/600th models I’ve been further inspired to do WWI as well by Dave G’s range of models at PT Dockyard showing what the possibilities are.
(*David Manley’s fast play MTB rules were first published in “Wargames Journal” issue 9 at the start of 2008).
Wargaming Scales
Figure scales are expressed two ways, either as a simple measurement, e.g. 25mm, defining how high a figure of a normal man or woman stands or as a ratio, e.g. 1/48th, defining how big a model vehicle, vessel, aircraft, or construction is in relation to the real thing. The emphasis here is on the former classification with the latter provided where possible as an approximate comparison.
Continue reading “Wargaming Scales”Brief History Of Wargaming
The following is a brief history of modern wargaming told in quotes from various wargaming books & authors:
“It was in Europe that the early forms of wargaming gradually took on a more sophisticated appearance. During the Seventeenth Century several variations on the basic game of chess were introduced. During the Eighteenth Century a number of games were introduced into France which departed from the idea of pieces and which used series of cards designed to impart basic military knowledge to the players. Also, at about this time, silver model soldiers were being used at the French Court to instruct the future king, Louis XIV, in the art of war” – David Nash (Wargames – 1974).
Continue reading “Brief History Of Wargaming”Wargaming Periods
Periods are the “Eras” or “Level of Technology” present for wargaming. Having a Greek Army of 300 BC facing a Russian Army of 1944 AD is obviously quite a mismatch and both armies need quite different sets of rules to control how they perform. Hence we have “Periods” in which armies all operated in similar ways, or with similar weapons, and can be ‘played’ using a common set of rules.
Continue reading “Wargaming Periods”